Cuomo Campaign Selling World Series Tickets For $5,500 Each
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Scalpers are raking in profits selling World Series tickets, but is Governor Cuomo at it too?
Cuomo's re-election campaign is offering tickets for the Mets-Royals World Series games three or four at Citi Field -- for a $5,500 price tag.
Contributors will also attend a 90-minute pre-game reception with Cuomo in a Citi Field luxury box.
Some fans say it sounds like scalping.
"I think he's taking advantage of the situation and capitalizing on the price of Mets tickets," one fan said.
A campaign source said they purchased a 'limited number of tickets' for the fundraising event.
"Give 'em to needy kids, kids without parents, things that would make more of an impact than 5500 dollars in his pocket," another fan said.
More: Check out our World Series Live blog for complete Game 1 coverage.
Susan Lerner, the head of New York Common Cause said the fundraising practice is legal, but it looks bad for the campaign.
"This constant auctioning off of access to the governor really is unseemly and highlights what's wrong with our campaign finance system," Lerner said.
A source said the campaign bought 'a few dozen' the tickets at face value. They would not elaborate on how they managed to acquire the tickets.
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Nassau County Democratic Party leader Jay Jacobs said Cuomo's plan is a perfectly legitimate fundraising tactic -- like broadway events that include entertainment.
"You need to raise an awful lot of money in order to run these campaigns," Jacobs said. "This is about one of the cleanest and straightforward, open types of campaign events you can find."
Some Mets fans may say it's a bad call. But fans of the governor write off the criticism as part of the game of politics.
